FMIC vrs. AIR/Water

[DomWoo]

what do you think is a better set up??

front mount intercooler

or

an Air to water intercooler set up??

im thinking of going with a air/water setup but i want to make sure it will work.

[PrecisionBoost]

Air to water is allways without a doubt the most efficent intercooler you can get but there are a number of pros and cons.

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First the pros....

Air to Water cool temperatures below ambient outside temp by adding ice prior to racing.

Air to Water has the highest efficency of all intercoolers which means that the water will absorb the heat from the intake air much quicker than an Air to Air intercooler

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Next are the cons

Water adds weight and you need a pump to cycle the water through the intercooler

Water is great at absorbing heat but it doesn't take long before the water temperature is close to that of your intake charge (nearly zero efficency)... this factor primarily depends upon your reserve tank size.

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So for daily driving I would say the air to air is best since the air rushing through the intercooler will always be the same temp (where as water will heat up )

For all out racing water to air is the best since you can dump in ice and get extreemly cool dense intake air..... it's not uncommon to get an intake temp 20 to 30 degrees below the outside temperature....but once the ice melts you loose that effect.

I personally want to make a three piece system where the water is cooled down via a very large intercooler integrated into the hood.

Basicly the water cooler will sit on top of the hood and a fiberglass or carbon fiber shroud will go over the top of it.

The water cooler will be insulated so that the engine doesn't contribute heat to the water cooler

There will be a large "air scoop" like this picture I modified...



The air will go into the intercooler sideways... so it will be about 1.25" tall by 30" wide by 12" in depth.

The water will go from the intake intercooler (warm water) to the hood mounted water cooler where it's cooled to the ambient temperature and then into a small isulated tank.....the pump is in the tank and supplies the intake intercooler with water.

I also thought about routing an A/C line into the insulated tank to cool it further but I think you would probably wouldn't gain much horsepower since the A/C compressor would suck power from the engine.

[DomWoo]

i have seen them mounted with a larg radaitor in the front.. would this bring down the temp away from turbo temp, i was also thinking if a ac type radaitor would work for this... it would have ot make about 25-50 passes cooling it extremely

[GsiTurbo]

There is a good article about it (air-to-air vs air-to-water) in the recent issue of HCI - I'll do a scan and post it here.